


Cherry Eater Boy

by Nuppy97



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Best Friends, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26579659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nuppy97/pseuds/Nuppy97
Summary: "Cherry, are we in a bromance or a in romance?"or: where everyone thinks Hyunjin and Seungmin are in a relationship, except the two fools in question.
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin/Kim Seungmin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 165
Collections: EQUINOX





	Cherry Eater Boy

**Author's Note:**

> EQUINOX - Prompt #105

Seungmin was mindlessly walking through the hallways when he heard a load voice calling “CHERRY!”

Of course he knew who it was, there was only one person who called him that.

Before he could even stop and look towards the voice, he felt an arm wrapped around his shoulder and the face of his childhood best friend picking from the crook of his neck.

“Hey,” Seungmin instantly smiled to the boy. “You have football practice today, don’t you?”

“I do,” Hyunjin pouted. “Will you wait for me?”

“Why should I?” Seungmin scoffed. “For once, I don’t have baseball practice, so I can just go home earlier and have a nap.”

“Right…” the pout was even wider now, but he quickly pulled out a smile and started skipping backwards in front of Seungmin. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow, Cherry!” and he darted towards the football field.

Seungmin couldn’t recall when exactly Hyunjin started calling him _Cherry_ , but he still remembered how it all began.

~*~

The first few years of his life, Seungmin went crazy for those tiny little red balls that tasted sweet and hid an even tinier stone inside them – they were tasty, shiny and cute. So of course Seungmin ate tons of them and, when he started kindergarten, he would bring cherries to chew on after he finished the canteen lunch.

It wasn’t a surprise when one of his classmates – a kid who reminded him too much of a steamed bun – called him from across the room as “Cherry-eater Boy”, but the laughter that erupted from the mention of the nickname were not really nice.

That’s why, in some kind of petty attempt of revenge, he decided to ignore the boy for the rest of his life. And it would have worked, if only that chubby-checked kid wasn’t so insisting!

Every single time, he would run to Seungmin and go on chanting “Cherry-eater boy, let’s play together!” or “Cherry-eater boy, let’s work together!” or even “Cherry-eater boy, let’s go home together!”

It didn’t take long before Seungmin was so mad that he pushed the other boy to the ground and started yelling “SEUNGMIN SEUNGMIN SEUNGMIN MY NAME IS KIM SEUNGMIN AND NOT CHERRY-EATER BOY!” he could feel the tears staining down his cheeks and it was just so embarrassing with all the attention his sudden outburst brought, that he just wanted to run back to home and cry under his Pokemon blanket for the rest of the day.

The dumpling-boy was pretty startled at first, but then he jumped up with a big smile painted on his face. “I’m Hyunjin, Hwang Hyunjin!” he took Seungmin’s hand in one of his own little ones. “Let’s play together, Cherry-eater Kim Seungmin!” he giggled and pulled the said-boy to the nursery’s playground.

Seungmin thought that for one day he could let Hyunjin do his own way, because he kind of felt bad for pushing the boy.

But then, they were neighbours, they both liked collecting Pokemon cards and running through the daisy fields on their way home, and Hyunjin’s parents had the best barbecues in the world. So they naturally became the best of the friends.

Somehow, they managed to be in the same class each and every year during elementary and middle school and, along the way, _Cherry-eater boy_ was getting too long for a nickname. That was where _Cherry_ came from. Seungmin didn’t mind the change.

~*~

When Seungmin arrived at the little hill surrounding the football field, the practice match had already started. So he found a nice spot under the big old oak tree and started doing the homework for the day.

He was that kind of guy who always had everything done way before the deadline. People called him over-archiver and he called it being stress-free. Because at the end of the day, who was the one that wouldn’t start going nuts a couple of weeks before finals, even having the time to enjoy their days like any other time of the year and sleep a healthy number of hours every day? Him, exactly!

When hell broke free for the majority of the students in his school, Kim Seungmin would do just peachy.

Hyunjin could probably be seen as an exception too. Contrary to the popular belief, his childhood friend was actually a pretty serious student.

If Seungmin immediately gave off the vibes of a perfectionist, good at every single task – be it academic or athletic – Hwang Hyunjin gave off the vibes of the loud, pretty and dumb boy.

Well, there was no doubt he was loud and pretty. In fact, he was dumb too, but not the way people would think him to be.

He was dumb enough to run for hours throughout the city during a freaking snow storm just to find the ring his grandfather had gifted him on his previous birthday and not being able to get up from his bed for the following week because of the massive cold he had gotten from it.

But he was zealous enough to spend hours and hours over his math textbooks because he wanted to become an interior designer and he knew how important the subject was for the said major.

But then again, he was also dumb enough to crash on the same lamppost while zoning out in the middle of the street, multiple times a week.

Basically, Hyunjin was dumb, but smart. But mostly dumb.

And the ginormous smile plastered on his face, as soon as he finished his football practice and saw Seungmin waiting for him not too far from the field, while he dashed towards his friend? Yeah, that was pretty dumb too.

“Cherry! What are you doing here?” Hyunjin giggled, dropping beside the said boy.

“Homework, as you can see.” Seungmin shrugged.

Hyunjin leaned his head on Seungmin’s shoulder and stared for a moment at the notebook spread in front of him. “Were you waiting for me?” he mumbled out.

“The weather was nice and I didn’t have anything better to do,” Seungmin shrugged again, to which Hyunjin excitedly hugged the lanky middle of his friend’s and planted a noisy kiss on his cheek. “Thank you,” he said, still clinging like an octopus. “I hate going back alone…” he murmured.

“I know.”

“Hey lovebirds!” Jisung’s loud voice storming towards them. “Stop shoving your lovey-dovey on our single-ass faces!”

“Don’t listen to him guys,” Felix tried to assure from the side, as if he wasn’t trying so hard to repress a laugh just a few second earlier. “You can be lovey-dovey wherever you want, and Jisung can keep being jelly jelly because of his sad love life,” he finished with a wink and started pulling the said boy away.

“We are single too, you know?” Seungmin stated in return.

“Yeah sure, and we are stupid enough to believe that!” Jisung yelled while being dragged towards the school gates.

Seungmin sighed to his friends’ antics. “Want to go back too?” he offered with a smile to the boy next to him.

Hyunjin hummed quietly, grabbed his backpack and got up from his spot on the ground “Yeah, let’s go.”

It wasn’t really the first time people questioned the nature of their relationship.

~*~

It was a lazy spring afternoon during their last year of middle school when – after a friendly basketball match between the classes – a friend from another class shyly started, “Hey, I don’t want to be nosy, but are you guys…” his face dusted pink from embarrassment as he shifted his index finger between Seungmin and Hyunjin. “Are you guys like, you know, together?”

“What do you mean by together?” Hyunjin asked, confusion clear by his furred eyebrows. “Aren’t we all here together?”

“No! I mean…” the boy’s face was now blushing furiously. “Like boyfriends-together, not as friends that are also a boys, but as lovers…?”

“Ooh…” Hyunjin’s face got crimson from the new information. “N-no we are just boys who are friends,” his voice so small, that it was barely hearable.

Seungmin couldn’t stop his curiosity from asking. “What made you think that we were boyfriends, though?”

Another of their friends hummed assertively. “I got the same idea, for the nickname, you know?”

“You mean Cherry?” Hyunjin laughed humorously, awkwardness all forgotten. “When we were kids, Seungmin used to eat tons of cherries every single day, so I called him Cherry-eater Boy”

“Which I hated, to be clear,” Seungmin interjected with a scrawl.

“Oh yeah, I remember that one time he pushed me to the ground because of how angry he was,” Hyunjin laughed again at the memory, before continuing the story. “So yeah, I called him that, but it was too long for a nickname, and that’s why I shortened it to Cherry!”

From that day on, no one said anything else on the matter.

Until they did.

In high school, most of their previous friends got diluted throughout the various classes, and they also didn’t get to continue their endless record as classmates. The number of times they had to explain themselves increased with the number of new friends they made.

And of course the fact that Hyunjin suddenly went through puberty and started becoming a weirdly appealing mixture of pretty and attractive didn’t help decreasing the amount of people interested in his romantic status.

~*~

“Soooo I was thinking,” Jisung started with shiny eyes, sitting cross-legged on their neighbourhood playground. “We are all becoming adults in about a week or so.”

“Why do I smell a shitty idea?” Seungmin sipped his banana-milk while dangling from one of the swings, eliciting a laugh from Felix and Hyunjin.

“It’s not a shitty idea, okay? It’s experiencing the adult life!” Jisung pouted, crunching a little his choco-milk in annoyance.

“Are we going to watch a late-night movie?” Felix asked naively from the kid-sized slide and continued sipping on his strawberry-milk.

“Not a bad idea, but not quite what I had in mind,” Jisung picked up his newscaster voice again. “How about going to a night club? And we’ll also be together and ready to protect each other’s innocence, so no need to worry about all those creepy people out there!”

“Wait wait wait wait!” Hyunjin scrutinised the squirrel-looking boy from another one of the swings, and after a long drag of his banana-milk. “Who exactly convinced your lazy-ass to abandon your couch to go _partying_?”

“Well, Minho hyu-” Jisung tried explaining, but got interrupted by Hyunjin’s loud voice. “I’m not going to go and witness your painful attempts at flirting with Minho hyung!”

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT I NEVER TRIED TO FLIRT WITH HIM!!” Jisung’s cheeks were getting away too red and puffy for his declaration to be taken seriously.

“Jisungie, you know that’s not true,” Felix interfered kindly. “You’re drooling on him since that day in the library when h-” Jisung quickly slammed a hand on Felix’s mouth. “That’s enough, Lee Yongbok!”

“You know that’s kind of pointless, right?” Seungmin smirked. “We all know what happened that day.”

“But now that I think about it, seeing you try and fail flirting is always exhilarating!” Hyunjin laughed at the memories of his friend embarrassing himself.

“Don’t you dare, Hwang!” Jisung springed on his feet. “Seungmin and your flirting is no way near sleek!”

“Why are you dragging me in this stupid argument?” Seungmin huffed in return. “Besides, I don’t do flirting.”

“Because you are WEAK!” Jisung exclaimed.

Seungmin could also see from the corners of his eyes Felix opening his mouth to add something, and quickly closing it after an eloquent exchange of looks with Hyunjin. Well, if that wasn’t shady!

“So you DO admit that you’re going to flirt!” Hyunjin jumped from his swing in front of Jisung with a triumphant smile.

“Whatever,” the said boy mumbled. “Are you coming or not?”

“Yeah, why not?” Seungmin conceded. “When is it?”

“On the 31st,” Jisung started jumping up and down from the excitement. “We'll start our adult lives on the January 1st DOING ADULT STUFFS!” he yelled to the night sky.

“You IDIOT, DON’T DISTURB OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD!” Hyunjin yelled in return.

“WHO ARE YOU CALLING IDIOT, _YOU_ IDIOT!!” Jisung puffed out his chest in an attempt to be intimidating.

“DON’T FIGHT GUYS!” Felix also joined.

“EVERYONE STOP SCREAMING!” Seungmin added to the confusion.

Why was he their friend again?

~*~

A week passed more quickly than expected, and Seungmin found himself in the middle of Hongdae – on the harsh winter night the last day of the year decided to be – squeezed between his three best friends and hundreds of strangers welcoming the new year.

But for the four of them, as it was for everyone born in their same year, that moment was far more meaningful than a simple occasion to celebrate. They were saying goodbye to their childhood and entering the scary reality that was adulthood.

Seungmin felt two hands slipping in his own. He looked on both of his sides to find Hyunjin and Felix watching the fireworks with tumultuous eyes. Jisung, on Felix’s other side, held the same expression.

 _Bittersweet_. That’s what it was.

After talking a few minutes to digest this new recognition, they headed with long strides to the night club they had previously decided on.

Minho was waiting for them in front of the said club. Once he saw the four boys going towards him, he greeted them with one of his widest smiles and pulled each of them to a bone-crushing hug.

“Kids grow up so fast,” he then fake-cried, earning a snort from Seungmin. It wasn’t that he didn’t like that hyung of his, but it was just how the dynamics between the two of them went. Of course, he enjoyed it too much to start and change now!

The music was blasting loudly even from the messy line spread outside the club, but it became deafening as soon they entered from the entrance door.

It was dark, bright lights flashing their sensitive eyes.

Minho immediately guided them to the bar and ordered two shots per head. “It’s for getting in the vibes!” he declared solemnly.

As Seungmin threw the liquid down his throat, he felt the sudden burn and a slight buzz starting to warm his cheeks.

“Now don’t bring me lame excuses like feeling shy or whatever,” Minho smirked, looking at each one of them. “TIME TO MOVE WHAT MAMA GAVE YOU!”

“WHO IS SHY?! SHY IS FOR THE WEAK!” Jisung stated puffing his chest in fake-confidence and stomping his feet in some weird movements.

Minho laughed and pulled him into the mass of people trying to follow the blasting music.

Felix also started vibing – the poor kid couldn’t even handle caffeine – and grabbed the hands of the two remaining friends of his, jumping into the dance floor.

It wasn’t long before Hyunjin and Felix started swaying their bodies in such a rhythmic and sinuous way that attracted away too much attention.

Seungmin was in no way awkward with his body – in fact, he was quite athletic – but dancing wasn’t his forte, so bouncing carelessly was what he retorted to.

Felix somehow managed to get to the small stage made for those who were feeling fearless and Seungmin decided that tea was the strongest substance his friend was ever going to be allowed to drink.

“Next time Felix gets milk!” Seungmin stated his contradiction over the loud music and Hyunjin had to lean on him for how hard he started laughing.

“Come on, he gets hyperactive even with coffee!” he argumented his thesis.

Hyunjin composed himself before fixing Seungmin with a curious look. “He doesn’t look drunk though,” his hands circled around Seungmin’s neck.

“No he doesn’t, but he looks on crack or something!” he granted, arms naturally positioning around his friend’s middle.

“He always looks on crack,” Hyunjin answered back, fingers playing with the back of Seungmin’s hair and eyes so intense that Seungmin’s breath hitched for a moment.

Hyunjin never stopped swaying along the rhythm, as if that was what he was always meant to do, arms dancing along Seungmin’s shoulders, silky black hair sticking to his forehead, the eye-makeup slightly smudged on the corners and pink plump lips streched in a smile so heartfelt.

It was enticing.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Seungmin finally managed to breathe out.

“Yeah,” the boy repeated, tongue tracing the outlines of his lips, as he always did when nervous or excited. But this time it was different. This time Seungmin couldn’t look away. This time the lips of his so-called best friend looked just far too inviting.

The sudden thought brought Seungmin out of his daze, realisation hitting him with full force. And a whole-ass epiphany following next.

It made sense, though. Sweet eye-smiles, giggling feelings and comforting touches all led to this.

For a moment, Seungmin was so overwhelmed by all the new sensations that started replying from the depth of his memories – which he might or might have not brushed off easily in the past – that it made him dizzy.

But it somehow made _so_ much sense.

It was ironic. He was so busy denying their apparent love-story to the world, that he failed to notice how, for years, just one boy had managed to catch every bit of his attention.

He didn’t get to see how exactly he fell in love with The Hwang Hyunjin, but looking back at his best friend – a foolish smile and slender fingers still delicately caressing his scalp – Seungmin couldn’t think of anyone else he would have more gladly gifted all of himself to.

~*~

It was the day of their high school graduation, when Seungmin and Hyunjin decided to go back to the old neighbourhood kindergarten on their way home.

Some parts of the building had been renovated since the last time they had seen it, but it was fine. After a day full of emotions and silent promises, those tiny little details just made it even more clear how the time wasn’t going to wait for them.

They walked through the little path hidden behind the kindergarten, the cold wind of a late winter caressing their overwhelmed senses.

Seungmin was giddy, chanting about all the memories the two of them made on that specific road and, as soon as he saw their daisy field – now covered by a thin layer of frost – he quickly pulled his friend by the hand, making them both crash on the meadow.

The daisy field was full of lazy evenings, childish fights and Pokemon cards trafficking.

But Hyunjin was being uncharacteristically quit.

“What are you thinking about?” Seungmin asked after a brief moment of silence.

Hyunjin clearly didn’t expect the question, because of how startled he looked. “Nothing important,” he said.

“You know you don’t need to hide anything from me, right?” Seungmin reassured. “Even if it’s stupid, I’m not going to judge – that’s just for Jisung-stuff.”

Hyunjin giggled at that. “Cherry…” he started, seemingly a lot more relaxed.

“Yes?” the atmosphere was packed with untold secrets and it made Seungmin strangely jittery.

“Are we in a bromance or in a romance?” Hyunjin mumbled, voice so soft that Seungmin had to ask himself if he had heard correctly. But the serious pout painted on that sweet boy’s face required the sincerest of the answers.

“Either is fine,” Seungmin could felt his cheeks starting to burn. “or both…” he hoped that nobody had noticed how his voice had cracked.

He could see Hyunjin’s surprise all over the place, so he didn’t expect what came next.

He didn’t expect the sweetest and softest of the kisses placed on his lips. No firework erupted on the back of his mind, just the awareness of how right that felt.

Hyunjin slowly peeled away and nervously waited for a reaction, so Seungmin answered with another peck.

He wasn’t as brave he wanted to be, his gut feeling like he was in a roller-coaster, but he wasn’t going to back out now.

“So… is this okay?” Hyunjin whispered, eyes shining with emotions.

“Yes,” Seungmin brought his hand to the boys’s face and started caressing his cheekbones. “This is perfect.”

Hyunjin released a long sigh, giggling right after, and started peppering Seungmin’s face with little kisses.

They didn’t need to say anything else; they knew exactly what they were talking about.

“I’ve never thought that you would agree to this,” Hyunjin sighed blissfully once they returned to lay on the frosted meadow, hands intertwined.

“Why?” Seungmin stroked the hand of the beautiful boy on his side.

“Because you never seemed interested to have something more with anyone!” Hyunjin pouted. He did know how adorable his pout was, didn’t he?

“You wanted me to show interest in someone else?” Seungmin retorted, raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe!” he exclaimed frustrated. “That way I could have tried and overcome this stupid crush!”

Seungmin got up on his elbow and fixed with a hard look the boy in front of him “So, is this crush stupid?”

“No, but it was painful, you know?” the pout was ever-so-prominent.

Seungmin’s eyes softened as he placed a long peck on the lips of the boy he found so annoying just a few years back on that exact same spot. “I’m sorry it took me so long,” he whispered, receiving the same crooked smile he had learnt to love.

“You did take your time!” Hyunjin laughed, getting a punch in return.

“Don’t talk like you’ve been in love with me since the very beginning!” Seungmin huffed.

“Maybe I have,” the sudden shift in the voice catching Seungmin’s attention.

“What do you mean?” he asked, a small pang on his heart.

“Why else would I follow incessantly a boy that munched cherries non-stop and violently pushed me to the ground?” Hyunjin joked.

“You’re an idiot!” Seungmin huffed again, slamming himself flat on the ground.

“But you love me,” it sounded more like a question than a statement.

“I do.”

“Cherry?”

“Yes?”

“I do, too,” Hyunjin rolled to the side and looked at Seungmin with disarming affection. “Ever since I was old enough to have crushes,” he smiled. “Then it just became so much more.”

And Seungmin could feel his whole world warming up.

~*~

People always told him how getting in a relationship was the first step into destroying a friendship. But, that wasn’t their story.

They got accepted in the same university, shared the same officetel and tried having together at least a meal per day.

At first, Hyunjin somehow kept his guard up, scaling back a whole lot on his usual skinship, afraid to scare his now-boyfriend away. And that’s why Seungmin took on the role of cuddling and kissing the boy whenever possible, showing him that it was okay to be physically affectionate, too. That he had nothing to be afraid of. Not with him.

It didn’t take long before Hyunjin returned to his habitual clinginess, maybe with a bit more of kissing and other stuff involved. Who was there to argue?

As a matter of fact, Seungmin loved clingy.


End file.
